Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold

by Stephen Fry

  Such praise as she daily received would have gone to anyone’s head. Arachne was not a spoiled or conceited child – in fact when not at the loom she came across as practical and prosaic rather than flighty or temperamental. She understood that she had been given a gift and was not one to claim personal credit for it. But she did value her talent and believed that in rating it at its proper worth she was simply being honest.

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured, gazing down at her work one fateful afternoon, ‘I truly think if Pallas Athena herself were to sit down and spin with me she would find herself unable to match my skill. After all, I do this every day and she only weaves once in a while, for amusement. It’s no wonder I am so far her superior.’

  With so many nymphs present in the front room of Idmon’s cottage you can be sure that news soon got back to Athena of Arachne’s ill-chosen words.

  The Weave-Off

  A week or so later, the usual crowd gathered round her, Arachne sat at the loom completing a tapestry that represented the founding of Thebes. Gasps and moans of appreciation greeted her depiction of the dragon-tooth warriors rising from the earth, but the oohs and aahs of her admirers were interrupted by a loud knocking on the cottage door.

  It was opened to reveal a bent and wrinkled old woman. ‘I do hope I’ve come to the right place,’ she wheezed, dragging in a great sack. ‘I’m told a wonderful weaver lives here. Ariadne, is it?’

  She was invited inside. ‘Her name is Arachne,’ they told her, pointing to the girl herself seated at her loom.

  ‘Arachne. I see. May I look? My dear, these are your own? How superb.’

  Arachne nodded complacently.

  The old woman plucked at the weave. ‘Hard to believe that a mortal could do such work. Surely Athena herself had a hand in this?’

  ‘I hardly think,’ Arachne said with a touch of impatience, ‘that Athena could do anything half so fine. Now, please don’t unpick it.’

  ‘Oh, you think Athena inferior to you?’

  ‘In the matter of weaving it’s hardly a matter of opinion.’

  ‘What would you say to her if she was here now, I wonder?’

  ‘I would urge her to confess that I am the better weaver.’

  ‘Then urge away, foolish mortal!’

  With these words the wrinkles on the ancient face smoothed away, the dull, clouded eyes cleared to a shining grey and the bent old woman straightened herself into the magnificent form of Athena herself. The crowd of onlookers fell back in stunned surprise. The nymphs in particular shrank into the corners, ashamed and frightened to be seen wasting their time admiring the work of a mortal.

  Arachne went very pale and her heart thudded within her, yet outwardly she managed to keep her composure. It was disconcerting to have those grey eyes fixed upon her but all their wisdom and steadiness of gaze could not alter the plain truth.

  ‘Well,’ said she with as much calmness in her voice as she could manage, ‘I’ve no wish to offend, but it is, I think, undoubtedly true that as an artist of the loom I have no rival, on earth or on Olympus.’

  ‘Really?’ Athena arched an eyebrow. ‘Let’s discover then. Would you like to go first?’

  ‘No, please …’ Arachne vacated her seat and pointed to the loom. ‘After you.’

  Athena examined the frame. ‘Yes, this will do,’ she said. ‘Phocaean purple, I see. Not bad, but I prefer Tyrian.’ So saying she pulled from her sack a quantity of coloured wools. ‘Now then …’

  Within seconds she was at work. The boxwood shuttle flew back and forth and, magically, wonderful images began to appear. The crowd of people pressed forward. They saw that Athena was bringing to life nothing less than the story of the gods themselves. There was the gelding of Ouranos in all its gory detail; how sticky the blood looked. There the birth of Aphrodite; how fresh and damp the ocean spray. Here was a panel that showed Kronos swallowing Rhea’s children, and here another of the infant Zeus being suckled by the she-goat Amalthea. Athena even wove into the tapestry the story of her own birth from Zeus’s head. Next came a dazzling depiction of all twelve gods enthroned on Olympus. But she wasn’t finished yet.

  As if deliberately and publicly to humiliate Arachne for her presumption, Athena now created panels that showed the price paid by mortals for daring to set themselves up as equals or superiors to the gods. In the first she showed Queen RHODOPE and King HAEMUS of Thrace, who were changed into mountains for daring to compare their grandeur as a couple to that of Hera and Zeus. And in another panel Athena wove the image of GERANA, Queen of the Pygmies, who proclaimed her beauty and importance to be greater by far than that of the Queen of Heaven and had been transformed by an enraged Hera into a crane-bird. In that same corner she wove a picture of ANTIGONE, who had her hair turned into snakes for a similar act of impudence.fn2 Finally Athena adorned the border of her work with designs of olive – the tree holy to her – before standing to receive the acclamation that was her due.

  Arachne was gracious enough to join in the applause. Her mind had worked as fast as Athena’s shuttle and she knew just what she was going to create. A kind of madness had overcome her. Having found herself in the unlooked-for position of competing against an Olympian goddess, she now wanted to show the world not just that she was the better weaver, but that humans were better than gods in every way. It maddened her that Athena should present so grandiose a subject as the birth and establishment of the Olympian deities and then depict such clumsy fables of punished hubris. Well, two could play the game of parables. She would show her!

  Arachne sat down, cracked her knuckles and began. The first form that came to life beneath her flying fingers was that of a bull. There was a young girl riding it. Another panel showed the bull rising in the air and crossing the sea. The girl looked back over the waves towards young men running in panic to the cliffside. Could it be? Was this scene the ravishing of Europa and were those boys Cadmus and his brothers?

  A murmur rose from the onlookers who pressed round on all sides to get a closer look. The following series of images made it all too clear what Arachne was up to. Here was ASTERIA, daughter of the Titans Phoebe and Coeus, despairingly turning herself into a quail to try and escape the rapacious attentions of Zeus in the shape of an eagle. Next to this Arachne wove a picture of Zeus as a swan insinuating himself around the body of TYNDAREUS’s wife LEDA. Now he was a dancing satyr chasing the beautiful Antiope; next the lustful god appeared in one of his strangest metamorphoses – a shower of golden rain, in which unlikely manifestation he could be clearly seen impregnating the imprisoned DANAË, daughter of King ACRISIUS of Argos. Many of these ravishings and seductions were the subjects of mortal gossip. For Arachne to be bringing them to life in coloured silk was unpardonable. Further scenes of Zeus’s depraved career followed – the hapless nymph Aegina and the lovely Persephone molested by him in the form of a speckled snake. The rumour that in this manner Zeus had once taken Persephone, his own daughter by Demeter, had been whispered before, but for Arachne to show it now was sacrilege.

  Yet Zeus was not the only god whose tales of degeneracy she wrote in thread. Scenes of Poseidon now appeared, the sea god shown first as a bull, galloping after the frightened ARNE of Thessaly, then disguised as the mortal ENIPEUS so as to win the lovely Tyro, finally as a dolphin in his pursuit of the enchanting MELANTHO, daughter of Deucalion.

  Apollo’s depredations were the next to appear: Apollo the hawk, Apollo the lion, Apollo the shepherd, all despoiling maidens without pity or shame. And Dionysus too was portrayed, disguising himself as a large cluster of grapes to deceive the beautiful ERIGONE, and in a fit of temper, transforming ALCATHOË and the MINYADESfn3 into bats for daring to prefer a contemplative life to one of frenzied revelry.

  All these episodes and more were summoned by Arachne’s art. They shared the common theme of the gods taking deceitful and often savage advantage of mortal women. Arachne completed her work by weaving around it a patterned edge of interlacing flowers and ivy leaves. When she was d
one she calmly pushed the shuttle to one side and stood up to stretch.

  The Reward

  The onlookers drew back horrified, fascinated and disturbed. The girl’s audacity was breathtaking, but there could be no denying the supreme skill and artistry with which this bold but blasphemous work had been executed.

  Athena came forward to examine every inch of the surface and could see no blemish or flaw. It was perfect. Perfect but sacrilegious and impermissible. In silence she ripped the web and tore up every scene. Finally, unable to master her rage, she snatched up the shuttle and hurled it at Arachne’s head.

  The pain of the shuttle striking her brow seemed to waken Arachne from her trance. What had she done? What madness had possessed her? She would never be allowed to weave again. She would be made to pay a terrible price for her insolence. The punishments that had been visited on the girls whose fates she had registered in her tapestry would be as nothing to those visited upon her.

  She took a length of thick hemp from the floor. ‘If I cannot weave I cannot live!’ she cried and ran from the cottage before anyone could even think of stopping her.

  The spectators pressed around the window and the open door and watched in frozen horror as Arachne ran across the grass, swung the rope over the branch of an apple tree and hanged herself. They turned as one to look at Athena.

  A tear rolled down the goddess’s cheek. ‘Foolish, foolish girl,’ she said.

  The crowd of onlookers followed her in appalled silence as she made her way out of the cottage and towards the tree. Arachne was swinging at the end of the rope, her dead eyes bulging from her head.

  ‘A talent like yours can never die,’ Athena said. ‘You shall spin and weave all your days, spin and weave, spin and weave …’

  As she spoke Arachne started to shrivel and shrink. The rope she dangled from stretched itself into a thin filament of glistening silk up which she now pulled herself, a girl no longer but a creature destined always busily to spin and weave.

  This is how the first spider – the first arachnid – came into being. It was not a punishment as some would have it, but a prize for winning a great competition, a reward for a great artist. The right to work and weave masterpieces in perpetuity.

  More Metamorphoses

  We have seen the gods transform men and women into animals out of pity, punishment or jealousy. But, just as they could be as proud and petty as humans, so the gods could be equally motivated by desire. Mortal flesh, as we have seen, was as appealing to them as immortal. Sometimes their urges were little more than primitive lust, but they could fall genuinely in love too. There are many stories of the gods chasing after and transforming the loveliest youths and young women into animals, new plants and flowers, and even rocks and streams.fn1

  Nisus and Scylla

  NISUS was a King of Megara, a city on the coast of Attica.fn2 He had been granted invincibility in the form of a single lock of purple hair which kept him immune from any human harm. For some reason his kingdom was attacked by the forces of King Minos of Crete. One day Nisus’s daughter, the Princess SCYLLA,fn3 caught sight of Minos on board one of his warships as it passed close to the walls of Megara and fell in love with him. So maddened by desire did she become that she decided to steal her father’s lock of purple hair and give it to Minos on board his ship; in return he would repay her generosity with love. But once she had stolen the lock Nisus became as vulnerable as any mortal. And while she was still secretly making her way to Minos, her father was killed in a palace uprising.

  Minos, far from being pleased by Scylla’s act of disloyalty to her own father, was disgusted, and would have nothing to do with her. He kicked her off his ship, hoisted sail and left Megara, vowing never to return.

  So overmastering was her passion that even now Scylla could not give up on the man she loved. She swam after Minos, calling pathetically. She mewed and cried so plaintively after him that she was turned into a gull. Such was the humour of the gods that at the same time her father Nisus was transformed into a sea-eagle.

  In revenge he has relentlessly harried his daughter across the oceans ever since.

  Callisto

  Before he was turned into a wolf – as you may recall – during the early days of Pelasgian mankind, King Lycaon of Arcadiafn4 had a beautiful daughter called CALLISTO, who was raised as a nymph dedicated to the virgin huntress Artemis.

  Zeus had long frothed with desire for this beautiful, unattainable girl and tricked her one day by transforming himself into the very image of Artemis herself. She readily fell into the arms of the great goddess she followed, only to find herself ravaged by Zeus.

  Some time later, bathing naked in the river, she was seen by Artemis who, enraged by her follower’s state of pregnancy, expelled poor Callisto from her circle. Alone and unhappy she wandered the world, before giving birth to a son, ARCAS. Hera, never one to show mercy to even the most innocent and guileless of her husband’s lovers, punished Callisto further by transforming her into a bear.

  Some years later Arcas, now a youth, was hunting in the forest when he came upon a great she-bear. He was just about to launch his javelin at her when Zeus intervened to prevent an inadvertent matricide and raised them up into the heavens as Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the constellations of the Great Bear and the Little Bear. Hera, still angry, cursed these constellations so that they would never share the same waters which (I am told) explains their permanently opposing circumpolar positions.fn5

  Procne and Philomela

  King PANDION of Athens had two beautiful daughters, PROCNE and PHILOMELA. Procne, the elder, left Athens to marry King TEREUS of Thrace, by whom she had a son, ICTYS.

  One year, her younger sister Philomela came to Thrace to stay with the family for the whole summer. The dark heart of Tereus, one of the darkest that ever beat, was fiercely disturbed by the beauty of his young sister-in-law and he dragged her to his chambers one night and raped her. Fearful that his wife and the world might discover the hateful crime, Tereus tore out Philomela’s tongue. Knowing that she was unable to read and write, he felt safe that she could never communicate to anyone the abominable truth of what had taken place.

  But over the next week or so Philomela wove a tapestry in which she depicted for her sister Procne all the details of her violation. The wronged and raging sisters planned a revenge that would match the monstrous evil of the crime. They knew how to hurt Tereus most. He was a violent and repulsive man given to wild rages and unspeakable depravities, but he had one weakness – his deep love for his boy Ictys. This unbounded affection Procne and Philomela knew well. Ictys was Procne’s son too, but what maternal love she once felt had been quite overwhelmed by hatred and an unquenchable lust for revenge. Abandoning all pity, the sisters went to the child’s bedchamber and murdered him in his sleep.

  ‘Philomela will be leaving for Athens soon,’ Procne told her husband the next morning. ‘Why don’t we hold a banquet tonight to bid her farewell and to honour the kindly hospitality you have offered her?’

  Philomela whimpered and nodded her head vigorously.

  ‘She seems to think it would be a good idea too.’

  Tereus grunted his assent.

  At the feast that night a succulent stew was served which the king greedily consumed. He soaked up all its juices with hunks of bread, but found he still had room for more. Just out of arm’s reach lay a dish covered by a silver dome.

  ‘What’s under that?’

  Philomela pushed the dish towards him with a smile. Tereus lifted the dome and gave a shout of horror when he saw his dead son’s head grimacing up at him. The sisters screeched with laughter and exultation. When he realized what had been done to him, and understood why the stew was so deliciously tender, Tereus gave a great roar and snatched down a spear from the wall. The two women ran from the room and cried out to the gods for aid. As King Tereus chased them out of the palace and down the street he found himself suddenly rising into the air. He was being transformed into a hoopoe bird
, and his yells of pain and fury began to sound like forlorn whoops. At the same time, Procne was changed into a swallow and Philomela into a nightingale.

  Although nightingales are famous for the melodious beauty of their song, it is only the male of the species that sings. The females, like tongueless Philomela, remain mute.fn6 Many species of swallow are named after Procne to this day and the hoopoe bird still wears a kingly crown.

  Ganymede and the Eagle

  In the northwest corner of Asia Minor there lay a kingdom called Troad, or Troy, in honour of its ruler King TROS. Troy looked across the Aegean Sea westwards to mainland Greece; behind it lay the whole of what is now Turkey and the ancient lands to the east. To the north were the Dardanelles and Gallipoli and to the south the great island of Lesbos. The principal city Ilium (which was to become known simply as the city of Troy) derived its name from ILOS, the eldest son of Tros and his queen CALLIRRHOË, a daughter of the local river god SCAMANDER. Of the royal couple’s second boy, ASSARACUS, little is recorded, but it was their third son, GANYMEDE, who took the eye and indeed the breath of all who encountered him.

  No more beautiful youth had ever lived and moved upon the earth than this Prince Ganymede. His hair was golden, his skin like warm honey, his lips a soft, sweet invitation to lose yourself in mad and magical kisses.

  Girls and women of all ages had been known to scream and even to faint when he looked at them. Men who had never in all their lives considered the appeal of their own sex found their hearts hammering, the blood surging and pounding in their ears when they caught sight of him. Their mouths would go dry and they found themselves stammering foolish nonsense and saying anything to try to please him or attract his attention. When they got home they wrote and instantly tore up poems that rhymed ‘thighs’ with ‘eyes’, ‘hips’ with ‘lips’, ‘youth’ with ‘truth’, ‘boy’ with ‘joy’ and ‘desire’ with ‘fire’.